all locked up: let the demolition begin!

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As previously mentioned, we dropped Argie off in the back of my folk’s property near Ashland. The first thing I did was level it, making sure the drain ran downhill. We had talked about tearing stuff out of the inside, and ended up taking a lot more out than we were originally considering. The first day I was able to work on it, I tore out the two beds on the side.

what Argie originally looked likebeds no more!

We didn’t need them. We needed to make a decent amount of space if we were gonna live in this puppy! All the walls were some thin plywood from the ‘70s, real lame. The interior walls were padded foam on plywood, also lame. So I tore it all out.

this is what the original floor plan looked like

The front door latch worked, but the lock was missing the locking pin. The locking pin moves up or down into the latch and a tab fits into a notch in the pin, which moves it when the key is turned. I made one out of drill steel, and threaded a screw through it, so it could be operated indoors or outdoors. I had to take the lock off the door, and make a part I hadn’t seen, but knew how it worked.

using the drill press to drill the hole in the pinin my hand is missing piece that I had to design and make

So, once we could lock it up and had torn out the beds, it seemed like there was still quite a bit of work to do until we’d be happy with what we had here. Every time we took something out, we’d visualize it with another part missing, like the idea, and tear it out. Everything was held in with pop rivets. 40 year old pop rivets, “just pop out!” That’s why they call ‘em that. Really though, about thirty percent of it was held in with Phillip’s head screws. A lot of those “just popped out,” too.

Demo is usually kinda fun. There were old lights hanging on the back, and I’m pretty sure they worked, but they were still hanging on some of that plywood with padding that had to go. We were really liking the idea of no walls. We collectively agreed that we can just have a curtain across the back for the bathroom.

everything but the kitchen sinkthe pile of what came out

It took me two days to take everything out of the inside. I probably could’ve done it in one day. A lot of that time is me standing around and thinking; I do ten minutes on some work, stand around for four minutes thinking about potential plans.

in the chill zone

Now, everything we need to do next is looming ahead of us, but we’ll get it taken care of soon enough. I think we’ll paint the interior next, then get to building more stuff to put back in it!